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The Vaults

One of the things that I heard before coming to London was “Halloween is not a thing.” This is a lie. There were people dressed up on Halloween, and the days before and after it, of all ages. Huge groups of kids, teens, and adults. Just EVERYWHERE.

But I’m getting ahead of myself!

In the week leading up to Halloween, me and a few of my flatmates had a great experience seeing a live taping of an episode of the X Factor. Thankfully for us, we got into a performance night, not a voting night, so we got to see live performances of Fleur doing Lady Marmalade and the like, since the theme of that episode was Night at the Movies. We also just got to stare at Simon Cowell and also see the shenanigans that everyone gets up to in the commercial breaks (there are many). We were told that we were the loudest crowd to date in the studio – go us!

My flat had been discussing Halloween for months leading up to it, when we decided that we were going to be the Guardians of the Galaxy. I got the part of Gamora, since … uh … there was enough leather in my closet to make a costume without having to supply much. This was a very low budget, Guardian-inspired move, and I think it came out beautifully.

Our actual Halloween weekend included two separate parties that were really awesome. The first was a party in the Vaults under Waterloo Station, which our art professor actually got us into. Features included a mist room with “zombies” coming at you, a movie room for relaxing and watching movies like Beetlejuice, a bar/lounge and a dance floor with music by a full brass band. It was crazy!

The second was a party with just friends at a flat, which was awesome as well. I’ve been very lucky with the people that I either came over here with or met/gotten to know better while I’ve been here.

The most recent random thing that’s happened since I last posted about London was our attendance of another football game, this one Charlton Athletic vs. Sheffield Wednesday. It ended in a tie, but it was a really good game all around. We also had these seats RIGHT at the grass line in the middle of the field, so half the time it was like the players were RIGHT next to us. We went in rooting for Charlton (the home team) of course, and totally got lost in the chanting and the noise and the raucous fun of the game. I’m going to miss being able to just pop by a sports game at home.